To the surprise and dissatisfaction of most persons, however, Anne of Austria commanded that the ball should take place in daylight; acknowledging, in her own immediate circle, that it was in order to mortify the ladies attached to the Fronde, the princ.i.p.al part of whom employed methods of enhancing their beauty and heightening their complexion to which the searching eye of day was very inimical. Human malice, of course, took care that the Queen's motive should be communicated to all the higher circles of Paris; and as vanity is not only a more pugnacious pa.s.sion, but a much more pertinacious adversary than any other, the words of Anne of Austria rendered many opponents irreconcilable, who might otherwise have been gained to her cause: the family of the Prince de Conde naturally being among the number.

France was then able to count the cost of having created a hero--_expendere Hannibalem_--a prince _a la Corneille_, who carried his gaze to the stars, and only spoke to mortals from the summit of his trophies. His sister, Madame de Longueville, had also in the same fashion soared into the sphere of a G.o.ddess. The one and the other, in the empyrean, no longer distinguished their fellow mortals from such a height save with a smile of disdain. Great folks, as a contemporary tells us, kicked their heels in their antechambers for hours, and, when granted an audience, were received with yawning and gaping.

The reconciliation effected during the preceding year was rather, as has been said, a truce between the parties than a solid peace. The Parliament had retained the right of a.s.sembling and deliberating upon affairs of state, which the Court had sought to prevent: and Mazarin remained Minister, although the Parliament, the people, and even the princes, had desired that he should cease to hold that office. It rarely happens to states in like unfortunate emergencies that among the men who show themselves most active and skilful in overthrowing a government there are found those capable of conducting one; and when such do appear, the chances almost always are that circ.u.mstances hinder them from placing themselves in the front rank. It was to Gaston, the King's uncle, Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, that belonged, in concert with the Regent, the chief direction of affairs; but Gaston felt himself too weak and too incapable to pretend to charge himself with such a burden.

He could never arrive at any decision, and took offence when any matter was decided without him. Jealous of Mazarin's influence, more jealous still of that of Conde, neither of the two could attempt to govern along with him; and nevertheless Gaston was powerful enough to command a party, and to hinder any one from governing without him: ready to offer opposition to everything, but impotent to carry anything into execution.

If Anne of Austria had even consented to dismiss her favourite Minister, and overcome her repugnance to the Fronde and the Frondeurs, she could not have formed a government with the chiefs of that party.

The Duke de Beaufort, its nominal head, lacked both instruction and intelligence. De Retz, its veritable chief--an eloquent, witty, and bold man, skilful in the conduct of business, in the art of making partisans; brave, generous, even loyal when he followed the impulses of his own mind and natural inclination--was without faith, scruple, reticence, or foresight when he abandoned himself to his pa.s.sions, which urged him unceasingly to the indulgence of an excessive and irrational libertinage. Such a man could not have replaced him who for so long a period had informed himself of the affairs of France under a master such as Richelieu; who, deeply versed in dissimulation, was inaccessible to any sentiment that might possibly derange the calculations of his ambition. Besides, he, as well as Mazarin, would have had the Princes against him, and could not have resisted successfully their numerous partisans. De Retz had, through the ascendancy of his talents, great influence with the Parisian Parliament, but it mistrusted him; and that body, in its heterogeneous composition, offered rather the means for an opposition than strength to the Government. Conde, to whom the state owed its glory, and the Sovereign his safety, was therefore the sole prop upon which Anne of Austria might have rested; but that young hero had no capacity for business. He could not then have filled up the void which Mazarin's retirement would have created. Conde, whose natural pride was still further exalted by the flattery of the young n.o.bles who formed his train, and who obtained the nickname of _pet.i.ts maitres_, only used the influence which his position gave him to wring from Mazarin the places and good things at his disposal, and of these he and his adherents showed themselves insatiable. Thus, Conde rendered himself formidable and odious to Mazarin, and made himself detested by the people as Mazarin's supporter, at the same time that by his arrogance he shocked the Parliament, already unfavourably disposed towards him on account of his rapacity and his ambition.[1]

[1] Talon, mem. t. lxii. pp. 65-105.--Montpensier.

Such was the state of things, when the singular circ.u.mstances which attended the murder of one of Conde's domestics made that prince believe that the chiefs of the Fronde had conspired to a.s.sa.s.sinate him. He thought, by such a crime, to have found an opportunity for crushing that faction in the persons of its chiefs, and he inst.i.tuted a process in parliament against the contrivers of that murder. Public report particularly pointed to two persons, De Retz and Beaufort; and Conde, by his accusation, hoped to force them to quit Paris, where they found their princ.i.p.al means of influence in the populace. But in attacking thus, as it were, face to face, the two most popular men of the moment, Conde showed no better tact than in dealing with the Prime Minister. He conducted himself with so much haughtiness and arrogance, that the young n.o.bles who surrounded the soldier prince, when they wished to flatter him, spoke of Mazarin as his slave.[2]

[2] Motteville, mem. t. x.x.xix. p. 4.--Guy-Joly.

The process went on nevertheless. Almost all the judges were convinced of the innocence of the accused, but Conde pretended that they could not be absolved without giving a deadly affront to himself. He demanded that at the very least the Coadjutor and Beaufort should be made to quit Paris under some honourable pretext, and the Princess-Dowager de Conde declared that it was the height of insolence in them to remain in the capital when it was her son's wish that they should leave it. The Queen, who equally detested the Prince de Conde and the Frondeurs, could scarcely conceal her joy at seeing them at daggers drawn with each other; feeling certain that the moment was at hand when their dissensions would restore her supremacy.

Under such circ.u.mstances Conde had need of all his friends, but he considered that he was set at defiance, and he gave way all the more to his wonted pride and overbearing obstinacy. He seemed to take pleasure in offending Anne of Austria and Mazarin. The young Duke de Richelieu had been declared heir to an immense fortune, of which his aunt and guardian, the d.u.c.h.ess d'Aiguillon, was the depositary. The stronghold of Havre de Grace, which the Cardinal de Richelieu had formerly held as a place of retreat, was by such t.i.tle in the possession of the d.u.c.h.ess d'Aiguillon. Conde desired to be master of it, either for himself or for his brother-in-law, the Duke de Longueville. The young Duke de Richelieu was engaged to be married to Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, but the Prince having remarked that he had some liking for Madame de Pons, a sister of his own first love, managed to marry him clandestinely to her in the Chateau de Trye, lent him two thousand pistoles until he should be of age to enter upon possession of his property, and made him take possession of Havre de Grace. The Queen was mortally offended at such a proceeding on the part of Conde, who had moreover threatened to throw into the sea those she might send to Havre to seize the fortress; but the d.u.c.h.ess d'Aiguillon's resentment was still deeper and more active.

She was the first to tell Anne of Austria, that she would never be queen again until she had had the Prince de Conde arrested, a.s.suring her that all the Frondeurs would lend their hands to aid her in carrying out such a resolution.

Almost at this moment, a gentleman named Jarze, attached to Conde, foolishly took it into his head that the Queen entertained a liking for him, and it reached her ears that Conde and his friends had amused themselves whilst at table over their wine with Jarze's revelations of his amour with her, and that he had begun to feel certain of getting rid of Mazarin by that means. Mazarin himself probably became somewhat alarmed, as he spoke pointedly to the Queen on the subject, who pretended only to have contemplated the ridiculous side of her new adorer's gallantries. But when Jarze next made his appearance in her cabinet, she rated him roundly before the whole Court upon his absurd fatuity, and forbade him ever to enter her presence again. The Prince de Conde, pretending to feel hurt at the affront put upon Jarze, early next morning paid the Prime Minister a visit, and insolently demanded that Jarze should be received that very evening by the Queen. Anne of Austria submitted to his dictation, but could not endure such humiliation without seeking to avenge herself. In a woman's heart every other species of resentment yields to that of wounded pride. A few lines addressed to the Coadjutor in the Queen's own handwriting, and carried by Madame de Chevreuse, brought to her side that wily priest and formidable tribune, disguised _en cavalier_. Certain negotiations, however, which had preceded this interview, had reached the ears of Conde, who went to Mazarin to denounce the treachery. The Cardinal, glowing with a hatred which would have stopped at nothing for its gratification, laughed and jested, or flattered and soothed the object of his concealed wrath. He turned the Archbishop of Corinth into ridicule when Conde blamed him for his duplicity. "If I catch him," said the Cardinal, "in the disguise you speak of--in his feathered hat, and cloak, and military boots--I will get a sight of him for your Highness;"

and they roared at the idea of discovering the intriguer in so unfitting an apparel. But shortly afterwards in the wintry gloom of a January midnight (1650), disguised beyond the reach of detection, and guarded by a pa.s.sport from the Cardinal himself, De Retz was admitted at midnight by a secret door into the Regent's room at the Palais Royal, and deep conference was held between the two. The conditions of agreement were readily stipulated. The Coadjutor with an inconceivable address and most extraordinary success handled the threads of the intrigues consequent upon such agreement. He succeeded in making himself the confidant of Gaston; he made him renounce his favourite, the Abbe de la Riviere; he engaged him in the coalition which had been just set on foot between the Court and the Fronde, and he obtained his a.s.sent to the arrest of the Princes. Everything succeeded that was agreed upon. The Queen-Regent, at the moment of a council being held at the Palais-Royal, gave the fatal order, and then withdrew into her oratory. There she made the young King kneel down beside her in order to invoke Heaven in concert with herself to obtain the happy achievement of an act of tyranny which was destined to produce fresh woes to the realm, and to rekindle in it the flames of civil war.

On the morrow of the 18th of January, 1650, all Paris was electrified at the news of the arrest of the three Princes--Conde, Conti, and Longueville. That bold _coup d'etat_ was effected very easily and unceremoniously. The Princes went voluntarily, as it were, into the mouse-trap, by attending a great council at the Palais Royal. Anne had obtained from Conde an order for the seizure and detention of three or four persons whose names were left in blank; and on the authority of his own signature, the hero of Rocroy and the other two princes, were led quietly down a back stair, given over to the custody of a small escort of twenty men under the command of Guitaut and Comminges, and by them conducted during the night to Vincennes.

CHAPTER VII.

MADAME DE LONGUEVILLE'S ADVENTURES IN NORMANDY. THE WOMEN'S WAR.

THE heroes having thus suddenly disappeared from the scene, the political stage was left clear for the performance of the heroines. We are now about to see the women, almost by themselves, carry on the civil war, govern, intrigue, fight. A great experience for human nature, a fine historical opportunity for observing that gallant transfer of all power from the one s.e.x to the other--the men lagging behind, led, directed, in the second or third ranks. But those women of rank, young, beautiful, brilliant, and for the most part gallant, were doubtless more formidable to the minister at this juncture than the men. The two lovely d.u.c.h.esses, De Longueville and De Bouillon, having shown during the preceding year of what they were capable; the Queen therefore gave orders for their arrest. The wary lover of the fascinating politician who had lately begun to scatter her blandishments equally upon all--La Rochefoucauld--having been apprised by the captain of his quarter that some blow was meditated by Mazarin, had sent twice to warn the Princes through the Marquis de la Moussaye, but who, as it appears, failed to acquit himself of that important mission. But if La Rochefoucauld's warning failed to reach the ears of the Princes, he was more fortunate in effecting the escape of Madame de Longueville. Whilst they were seeking to arrest him as well as La Moussaye, the Queen despatched a note to the d.u.c.h.ess by the Secretary of State, La Vrilliere, begging her to come to the Palais Royal. Instead of going thither she went direct to the Hotel of the Princess Palatine--like herself beautiful, gallant, and intriguing, but endowed with a superior intellect. This lady speedily became the head and mainspring of the princes' party--or of the _second_ Fronde, and the Coadjutor, who directed the Old Fronde, was fain to recognise in her a worthy rival, and his equal in political sagacity.

Fearing to be discovered if she remained under the roof of the princess, a carriage was procured, and the d.u.c.h.ess driven in it by La Rochefoucauld himself to an obscure house in the Faubourg St. Germain, where they remained until nightfall in a cellar. Thence the d.u.c.h.ess and her lover set out for Normandy on horseback under the escort of forty determined men provided by the Princess Palatine. Brave and resolute as her brother, the sister of Conde rode northwards through that entire winter's night and the following day, and sought no shelter until worn out with excessive fatigue she reached Rouen. But the commandant, the Marquis de Beuvron, although an old friend of the duke, declared he could not serve her, and refused to raise the banner of revolt in that stronghold of her husband's government. Her attempt at Rouen thus receiving a complete check, she had some hope of being received into the citadel of Havre, but the d.u.c.h.ess de Richelieu, though her friend, was not so much mistress there as the d.u.c.h.ess d'Aiguillon, who, on the contrary, was full of resentment against her. Discouraged and repulsed on all hands, the fugitive d.u.c.h.ess next made her way to Dieppe, where she thought herself in sufficient safety to part with La Rochefoucauld, who left her to a.s.sist the Duke de Bouillon to raise troops in Angoumois. In the fortress of Dieppe, commanded by a faithful officer of her husband, Madame de Longueville found the rest she so much needed. In a brief s.p.a.ce, with spirits recruited, she resolved to make a stand to the uttermost against the Queen and Mazarin, and having replaced the royal standard by that of Conde set about putting the citadel in a state of defence to resist a siege. The Queen, however, having resolved not to give the d.u.c.h.ess time to raise her husband's government of Normandy into revolt, on the 1st of February quitted Paris for Rouen. The band of gentlemen who had gathered round the beautiful Frondeuse thereupon melted away, and Mademoiselle de Longueville, her step-daughter, afterwards d.u.c.h.ess de Nemours, quitted her to take refuge in a convent.

As Montigny, the commandant at Dieppe, declared that it was impossible to hold the fortress, the d.u.c.h.ess left the place by a secret portal, followed by her women and some few gentlemen. She held her way for two leagues on foot along the coast to the little port of Tourville, in order to reach a small vessel which she had prudently hired in case of need. On reaching the point of embarkation the sea was breaking so furiously in surf on sh.o.r.e, the tide being so strong and the wind so high, that Madame de Longueville's followers entreated her not to attempt to reach the vessel. But the d.u.c.h.ess, dreading less the angry waves than the chance of falling into the Regent's power, persisted in going to sea. As the state of the tide and weather rendered it impossible for a boat to get near the sh.o.r.e, a sailor took her in his arms to carry her on board, but had not waded above twenty paces when a huge roller carried him off his feet, and he fell with his fair burden.

For an instant the poor lady believed that she was lost, as in falling the sailor lost his hold of her and she sank into deep water. On being rescued, however, she expressed her resolve to reach the vessel, but the sailors refusing to make another attempt, she found herself compelled to resort to some other means of escape. Horses being luckily procured, the d.u.c.h.ess mounted _en croupe_ behind one of the gentlemen of her suite, and riding all night and part of the following day, the fugitives met with a hospitable reception from a n.o.bleman of Caux, in whose little manor-house they found rest, refection, and concealment for the s.p.a.ce of a week.

The d.u.c.h.ess's tumble into the sea, though a disagreeable, turned out to have been a lucky accident, for she now learnt that the master of the vessel she had been so anxious to reach was in the interest of Mazarin, and had she gone on board she would have been arrested. At length Madame de Longueville found herself once more in Havre, and having won over the captain of an English ship to whom she introduced herself--like Madame de Chevreuse--in male attire, as a n.o.bleman who had just been engaged in a duel, and was obliged to leave France, she succeeded in obtaining a pa.s.sage to Rotterdam. Thence, pa.s.sing through Flanders, she reached the stronghold of Stenay,[1] where the Viscomte de Turenne, already compromised with the Court for having openly espoused the Conde party, had shortly before the d.u.c.h.ess's arrival also taken refuge.

[1] Stenay, taken from the Spaniards in 1641, had been given to the Prince de Conde in 1646.

It was then that the d.u.c.h.ess, who, under the sway of La Rochefoucauld, had been one of the instruments of the first Fronde war, became the motive power of the second and far more serious one--well named by the witty Parisians "the women's war." From the citadel of Stenay, of which she took the command, she directed the wills and actions of the men of her party, into which she thoroughly won over Turenne. Her importunities, aided by her charms, prevailed so powerfully over his valiant though fallible heart, that the ill.u.s.trious captain, after having struggled painfully for some time with his conscience, allied himself with the Spaniards by a treaty which placed him, as well as the sister of the great Conde, in the pay of the enemies of his king and country. The treaty effectively stipulated "that there should be a junction of the two armies, and that the war should be carried on by the a.s.sistance of the King of Spain until a peace should be concluded between the two kings and the princes liberated. That the King of Spain should engage to pay over to Madame de Longueville and to Monsieur de Turenne two hundred thousand crowns wherewith to raise and equip troops; that he should furnish them with forty thousand crowns per month for the payment of such troops, and sixty thousand crowns per annum in three payments for _the table and equipages_ of Madame de Longueville and Monsieur de Turenne." This treaty duly signed, Madame de Longueville issued, in the form of a letter to his Majesty the King of France, a manifesto very skilfully drawn up and filled with artful complaints and accusations against Mazarin, with the design of soliciting through the one and the other an apology for her own conduct, as though it were possible to justify herself for having entered into a compact with the enemies of her country.

It was during her sojourn at Stenay that she lost her mother (2nd December, 1650). "My dear friend," said the Princess de Conde to Madame de Brienne, who was with her during her last moments, "tell that 'pauvre miserable' who is now at Stenay the condition in which you have seen me, that she may learn how to die."

During the whole of this period, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld gave constant proof of a rare fidelity. M. Cousin speaks very precisely on this head. "Whilst Madame de Longueville was pledging her diamonds in Holland for the defence of Stenay, La Rochefoucauld expended his fortune in Guienne. It was the most grievous and, at the same time, the most touching moment of their lives and their adventures. They were far away from each other, but they still fondly loved; they served with equal ardour the same cause, they fought and suffered equally and at the same time." Abundant proofs might be instanced of this love and devotion on their part. La Rochefoucauld wrote unceasingly to Stenay, and gave an account of everything he did. "The sole aim, then, of all the Duke's exertions," says Lenet, "was to please that beautiful princess, and he took endless care and pleasure to acquaint her with all he did for her, and to deliver the princess her sister-in-law (Conde's wife), by despatching couriers to her on the subject." He informs us moreover that, "in every juncture, he forwarded expresses to render account to the d.u.c.h.ess of all that respect for her made him undertake. At this moment, in fact, having just succeeded to his patrimonial estates through the death of his father, La Rochefoucauld recognised no obstacle in his path, but bravely went forward in the cause he had espoused and generously sacrificed his property in Angoumois and Saintonge. His ancestral chateau of Verteuil was even razed to the ground by Mazarin's orders, and when the tidings of it reached him, he received them with such great firmness", says Lenet, "that he seemed as though he were delighted, through a feeling that it would inspire confidence in the minds of the Bordelais. It was further said that what gave him the liveliest pleasure was to let the d.u.c.h.ess de Longueville see that he hazarded everything in her service." It cannot be denied, in fine, that the Duke at that time yielded himself up to a sentiment as deep as it was sincere, and which contradicts very happily and without any possible doubt the a.s.sertion so often hazarded that he had never loved the woman whom he had seduced and dragged into the vortex of politics. Madame de Longueville and he adored each other at this period, says M. Cousin, and it is pleasant to be able to cite the opinion of that eminent historian upon such fact; although separated by the entire length of France, they suffered and struggled each for the other: they had the same aim, the same faith, the same hope. They wrote incessantly to communicate their thoughts and projects, and thus sought to diminish in imagination the enormous distance which is between Stenay and Bordeaux.

BOOK IV.

CHAPTER I.

THE PRINCESS PALATINE.

THE arrest of the Princes had singularly complicated events on the political stage. It had displaced all interests, and, instead of re-uniting parties and consolidating them, it had the effect of increasing their number. No fewer than five might be counted, represented by as many princ.i.p.al leaders, around which were grouped every species of interest and every shade of ambition.

In the first place there was the party of Mazarin, alone against all the rest. This party had for support the ability of its chief, the invincible predilection, the unshakeable firmness of Anne of Austria, and the name of the King. Herein lay its whole strength, but that strength was immense. It was that which ensured the obedience of the enlightened and conscientious men who had great influence over the army and the magistrature. These men adhered to the Prime Minister through a sentiment of honour, and in consequence of their monarchical principles.

Amidst the disruption of parties, they recognised no other legitimate authority than that of the Queen Regent; but they desired as strongly, perhaps, as those of the opposite parties, that Mazarin should be got rid of. That odious foreigner exposed them all to the public animosity which pursued himself. Anne of Austria frequently employed the artifices of her s.e.x to avert their opposition in council, and calm their discontent.

The party of the Princes, which the success of the enemies of France, during their captivity, rendered from day to day more popular and interesting, was composed of all the young n.o.bility. Of its apparent chiefs, the one alone capable of directing it was the Duke de Bouillon.

But to lead a party it is necessary to identify oneself with it, and devote oneself to it wholly; and the Duke de Bouillon had views peculiar, foreign, and even adverse to the interests of his party; and before such interest he placed that of the maintenance, or rather elevation, of his own house. The d.u.c.h.ess de Longueville, the Princess de Conde, La Rochefoucauld, and Turenne had neither sufficient finesse nor skill in intrigue to be able to direct that party and struggle successfully against Mazarin; but they were seconded by three men who, although obscure, displayed in these circ.u.mstances extraordinary talent.

Lenet,[1] who never quitted the Princess de Conde throughout these troubles, but served her faithfully with his pen and advice. Montreuil, who, although he had never published anything, was a member of the French Academy and secretary to the Prince de Conde. He managed, with infinite address, and incessantly devising new means, to correspond with the Princes, and bring the vigilance of their keepers in default. And it was Gourville especially, who, after having worn the livery of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld as his valet, had become his man of business, his confidant, and friend. It was Gourville who, under a heavy expression of countenance, concealed a most subtle, most acute, and fertile intelligence. Persuasive, energetic, prompt, reflective; knowing how to gain an end by the direct road; or, under the eyes of those opposing, attaining it unperceived, by covert and tortuous ways. A man who never found himself in any situation, however desperate it might be, without having the confidence that he could extricate himself from it. Did the cleverest consider a position as lost? Gourville intervened, infused hope, promised to lend a hand to it, and success was immediately certain and defeat impossible.

[1] His memoirs give reliable details of all that relates to the Condes at this period.

Still Gourville was not, even on the score of ability, the foremost spirit of his party. The person who deserved that t.i.tle was a woman--the celebrated Anne de Gonzagua, widow of Edward Prince Palatine. Through her p.r.o.neness to gallantry, she did not escape the weakness of her s.e.x; but through her imperturbable calmness in the midst of the most violent commotions, her elevated views, the depth of her designs, the accuracy and rapidity of her resolutions, and her skill in making everything conduce to a given end, she combined in its entire vigour the peculiar character of the statesman with the soul of a conspirator. She had been through life the intimate friend of the mother of Conde, and she now laboured with skill, wisdom, and perseverance for the liberation of the Princes. And such is the ascendency obtained by talent backed by an energetic will, that it was to her advice all the partisans of the Princes deferred; her hand that held the threads of their various intrigues. With her De Retz treated directly, and in the whole course of the negotiations she displayed a degree of penetration which baffled all the subtlety of the Coadjutor; and while she foiled his devices against herself, she directed them aright against their mutual opponents. By her activity and energy five or six separate treaties were drawn up and signed between the different personages whose interests were concerned, each in general ignorant of his comrade's partic.i.p.ation.

It would be presumptuous in any way to attempt, after Bossuet, a perfect portraiture of this lady, but it may be interesting to glance at the antecedents of her life up to this period.

Charles de Gonzagua-Cleves, Duke of Mantua and Nevers, had, by his marriage with Catherine of Lorraine, three daughters: the oldest, Maria, whom he preferred to the others, or rather that his pride sought to elevate her alone to the highest destiny possible, was married successively to two Kings of Poland, Ladislas Sigismond and Jean Casimir. The second, Anne, who, as the Princess Palatine, became the political opponent of Mazarin; and the third, Benedicte, who took the veil and died whilst yet very young at the steps of the altar. It is the romantic, agitated, and changeful existence of the second with which we are concerned: pa.s.sed in tumult and ended in silence. In it may be found the invaluable lesson of that admirable ant.i.thesis afforded by error and repentance. Bossuet, in his eloquent, fervent oration upon the life of that princess, was enabled to derive from a contemplation of it the highest instruction. He has therein retraced, with an imposing authority, the errors of a woman exclusively engrossed, during many years, with worldly interests and earthly vanities, and also made the emphatic denial that, in their last hours, such awakened minds but rarely give themselves up without profound anguish, fitful emotion, and mortal struggle to the contemplation of imperishable joys. Anne de Gonzagua experienced those extremes. She pa.s.sed from incredulity and an irregular life to the most lively faith and exemplary conduct.

Captivated in turn by earth and heaven, worldly and scorning the world, sceptical and fervent, she had long centred her pride and happiness in the political affairs of her epoch, until the day came when, wearied with ephemeral pleasures and touched by grace, she finally renounced the things of this life and gave herself wholly up to celestial meditation.

In her earliest youth she had been placed in the convent of Faremoustier, where nothing was neglected that could tend to inspire her with a desire for cloister life. Her father, the Duke of Mantua, had determined that his two younger daughters, Anne and Benedicte, should help, by taking the veil, to augment the fortune of their elder sister.

Benedicte submitted to her fate, but Anne soon perceived what her father's plan was, and in her indignation she resolved to defeat it.

Unlike her younger sister, she had an adventurous spirit, an ardent imagination, a strong desire to play an active part in life. Even to withdraw from a mode of existence that was hateful to her, she made her escape from Faremoustier, and went to confide to her sister's bosom, in the convent of Avenai, her wrath, her _ennui_, and her hopes. For awhile it seemed as though conventual life was about to exercise a strange fascination over her. The discourse and example of her sister touched deeply the youthful heart which had proved rebellious to a parent's will. It seemed not improbable that she would yield to persuasion that which she had refused to compulsion. But her destiny determined otherwise. Events cast her upon another course; her imperfect vocation yielded quickly to their influence. She had been worked upon, in the solitude of the cloister, by that mysterious yearning for an encounter with those struggles which human pa.s.sions involve, the experience of which can alone extinguish such yearning in certain souls. It was necessary that she should see the world, undergo its deceptions, and be wearied of it, in order to desire repose and be capable of appreciating the inestimable blessings of peace and silence and tranquillity.

The Duke of Mantua dying in 1637, Anne was obliged to leave the cloister on business connected with the paternal succession, and appeared at Court with Marie, her elder sister. The turmoil of the world and its sensuous enjoyments speedily engrossed the young and lovely princess, involved her in their trammels, and only restored her to tranquillity and solitude after a lapse of many years; for at this time she also lost her sister, the youthful abbess of Avenai, and the last link which attached Anne to cloister life was severed by that death. An absorbing pa.s.sion, too, was destined to confirm her relinquishment of such vocation. The youthful Henri de Guise was then one of the most brilliant gentlemen at the French Court. Grandson of the _Balafre_, his high birth fixed the eyes of all upon him, at the same time that his impetuous imagination, his profession, all the aristocratic follies of the day--remarkable duels, romantic loves, eccentricities, the adventures and elegant habits of the _grand seigneur_--had const.i.tuted him an oracle of fashion and the hero of every festival. He was fascinated by the grace and beauty of Anne de Gonzagua, and she herself, in the midst of that gallant Court which masked a real depravation under the thin varnish of an ingenious subtlety of expression,--she herself, a disciple of the Hotel de Rambouillet, where questions of sentiment were discussed, studied, and a.n.a.lysed incessantly, knew not how to resist the gilded accents of a young, handsome, and impa.s.sioned lover. She let him see that she loved him. He made her a promise of marriage, signed, it is said, with his blood; and the affair seemed to promise a happy conclusion. But their mutual inclination was thwarted by Madame de Guise. The d.u.c.h.ess thought that the high dignities of the Church would procure greater wealth, honour, and power for her son than he could obtain in any other career: Henri was then Archbishop of Rheims.

Nevertheless, he persisted in his love for Mademoiselle de Gonzagua, and in his design of espousing her. The overtures which he made to the Vatican were not in vain. He received from the Pope, with the authorisation to again become a layman, a dispensation which his kinship to Anne rendered necessary for the celebration of their nuptials. But the lovers did not hasten to avail themselves of such privilege, apparently through dread of Richelieu, who was also opposed to their union. Perhaps that minister, from whom nothing secret was hidden--not even the unshaped designs of the ambitious,--already suspected Henri de Guise of being favourably disposed to the interests of Spain, as well as contrary to those of France. Anne and Henri, therefore, contented themselves with the possibility which the complaisance of the Holy Father had given them of contracting an indissoluble bond, and with the oath by which they reciprocally pledged their faith. Confiding in the honour of the Prince whom she so ardently loved, Anne consented to follow him, when he quitted France in order to escape from the espionage of Richelieu. Disguising herself in male attire, Anne rejoined her lover at Besancon, according to Mademoiselle de Montpensier, at Cologne according to other writers; where, as elsewhere, she caused herself to be called "Madame de Guise"--writing and speaking of her husband, and defying the a.s.surances which were constantly advanced of the illegality of a marriage secretly performed by a canon of Rheims in the private chapel of the Hotel de Nevers. But what are promises, marriage vows, or even bonds written in blood?

Henri not long after became unfaithful to the confiding Anne by eloping with a fair widow, the Countess de Bossut, whom he carried off to Brussels and ultimately married. Implicated in the conspiracy of the Count de Soissons, the turbulent churchman was present at the battle of Marfee, and consequently declared guilty of high treason. He therefore took up his abode in the Low Countries, where he quietly awaited the death of Louis XIII. and his minister, then both moribund, to resume his career at the Court of France.

Thus abandoned by her volatile lover, and extremely compromised, Mademoiselle de Gonzagua returned to Paris, where she rea.s.sumed the appellation of the Princess Anne. Her grief for awhile at her abandonment was great, but happily for Anne de Gonzagua, she was possessed of youth, and, as Madame de Motteville tells us, "of beauty and great mental attractions." She had moreover sufficient address to obtain a great amount of esteem, in spite of her errors. In a few years'

time, during which she took care to avoid fresh scandal, whatever she might have done "under the rose," she made a tolerably good marriage.

Her husband, her senior by two years only, was Prince Edward, Count Palatine of the Rhine, son of a king without a kingdom,--the elector Frederick,[2] chosen King of Bohemia in 1619, but who lost his crown in 1620, at the battle of Prague. Prince Edward, therefore, having no sovereignty, lived at the French Court. In 1645, then, Anne de Gonzagua found herself definitively settled at Paris, and it must be owned did not give Henri de Guise much cause to regret his faithlessness. The irregularities of the Princess Palatine became notorious, and a.s.suredly Bossuet, in the funeral oration which he p.r.o.nounced many years later, in the presence of one of her daughters and other relatives, whilst displaying a prodigal eloquence, and a mastery over all oratorical resource, made use of every artifice of speech, and all the elasticity of vague terms, in speaking of that period of her life without a violation of propriety, without disguising truths known to all, without exceeding either in blame or praise the limits imposed by good taste upon the reverend orator when he p.r.o.nounces a panegyric upon those who not unfrequently have very little merited it.

[2] This unfortunate Prince had married, in 1613, Elizabeth, daughter of James I. of England. The celebrated Prince Rupert and Sophia, Electress of Hanover, were among the other children.

During those stormy years of the civil wars, through her diplomatic talents, Anne de Gonzagua shone conspicuously in the front rank of female politicians. One can readily imagine what must have been, not in the first Fronde, all parliamentary as it was, but in the second, entirely aristocratic, in the Fronde of the Princes, the influence of a woman's mind at once so subtle and brilliant. It was then that Madame de Chevreuse, Madame de Montbazon, Madame de Longueville, and Mademoiselle de Montpensier, displayed upon the political stage the resources of their finesse, their dissimulation, or their courage. The Palatine did not fall below the level of those adventurous heroines. In the midst of those intrigues, of that puerile ambition, of those turnings and windings, perfidy, seduction, manoeuvring promises, of those negotiations in which Mazarin infused all his Italian cunning, the Queen her feminine impatience and her Spanish dissimulation, De Retz his genius of artist-conspirator, Conde his pride of the prince and the conqueror, Anne de Gonzagua handled political matters with a rare suppleness, humouring offended self-love, impatient ambition, haughty rivalries, acting as mediatrix with a wonderful amount of conciliatory tact, the friend of divers chiefs of parties, and meriting the confidence of all.

It would be tedious to relate here her various negotiations, to go over her discourses, conversations, and numerous letters: it would involve a history of the Fronde, and that is not our subject. It will suffice to say that she obtained the esteem of all parties at a time when parties not only hated but strangely defied each other, and that she manifested a skill, a tact which Cardinal de Retz--a good judge of such matters--does not hesitate to praise with enthusiasm. "I do not think,"

says he, "that Queen Elizabeth of England had more capacity for governing a state. I have seen her in faction, I have seen her in the cabinet, and I have found her in every respect equally sincere." This eulogium may be perhaps a little over-coloured. But Madame de Motteville, who also greatly admired the Palatine, probably approaches nearer to the truth. "This princess," she says, "like many other ladies, did not despise the conquests of her eyes, which were in truth very beautiful; but, besides that advantage, she had that which was of more value, I mean wit, address, capacity for conducting an intrigue, and a singular facility in finding expedients for succeeding in what she undertook." Thus spoke the Coadjutor and the Court of her. The parliamentary party, by the organ of the councillor Joly, confirms such panegyric: "She had so much intelligence, and a talent so peculiar for business, that no one in the world ever succeeded better than she did."

The Princess Palatine's political dexterity cannot therefore be contested: the testimony of the most opposite camps are thereupon agreed, and it is certain that, without the least exaggeration, it may be said that no one at that epoch, save Mazarin, better understood the resources of diplomacy.